


The Taste of Memories

by stephtron312



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, One Shot, flangsty, heavy on the angsty bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:04:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3972049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephtron312/pseuds/stephtron312
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She always looked serene after they kissed...and every kiss brought her right back to the first one." </p>
<p>Tara reflects on the better parts of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlannasTara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlannasTara/gifts).



> For my darling Liddym2113. Extra special thanks to wndrw8 for checking it over like the wonderful person she is <3 I got hearts in my eyes for both you babes.
> 
> ~~ Set in Season 5

She didn’t even care how stale it was, as soon as she wrestled all the plastic wrapping off Tara stuck the candy cane in her mouth. It tasted like dust with a hint of peppermint. Moaning, her eyes fluttered as she unhinged her jaw from the sticky sweetness.

“Enjoying that?” the voice came from her right and when she turned Carol eyed her over a rack half filled with Milk Duds and discarded Twinkie wrappers.

“This shit used to be my vice. I wonder why there’s still a whole box left,” Tara held up the green container with the remaining candy canes, untouched until she opened it, her fingers ripping through the plastic wrap with sheer delight.

Carol half snorted before pointing out, “It wasn’t exactly Christmas time when this whole thing started. Those were probably already a few months stale to begin with.”

Tara smirked, “Or the universe isn’t a total jackass and were just saving these for me.” She plopped her backpack on the floor, shoving the box in amongst the extra batteries, toiletries and the one scant blanket she had in there.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to take them out of the box? Save space?”

Tara snapped up at the suggestion, her eyes narrowing, “No, Carol, it would not. Then they’d break and there is nothing less satisfying than a candy cane in pieces.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Carol held her hands up in mock surrender, “I didn’t know there were so many rules.”

“Of course there are. Just like you can’t mess around with those dumbass flavored candy canes. Those are imposters and the only real ones are good old fashioned red and white peppermint.”

“I would have never guessed you were such a stickler for tradition,” the older woman smirked, her eyes scheming as she rounded the shelf and walked into Tara’s aisle. “Let me taste?”

With a soft pop, Tara slid the end of the candy cane out of her mouth, the stick already thinning and the red stripe a faded pink. She held it towards Carol and she shook her head, that smirk still tugging at her lips as she took a step closer. With a smile, Tara leaned in, meeting Carol’s lips with her own. The tip of Carol’s tongue traced the inside of her lips like a tiny silken thread.

When Carol pulled away, the smallest smile glistening on her face, Tara couldn’t quite grasp the words to describe the expression. She always looked serene after they kissed. Calmer than the usual terseness from the cogs that wound in her mind day in and day out. And every kiss brought her right back to the first one.

-*-

It was on a night slightly cooler than the hellish haze they had been walking through after leaving Atlanta when they happened upon a small brook. The group turned down for the night just a few yards away from it, hidden by the last few trees holding on to the nearing summer’s end, Carol left them to bathe after she was sure they were all tucked in and lost in soundless dreams. With Sasha on watch, Tara snuck away to find her at the water’s edge.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was trying to do by following her, she just wanted to lift a burden from her, help her in even the slightest way. It’s too often that people dismiss the helplessness of the helpful, and Tara didn’t want her getting this far without having someone check in on her too. But any plans of the innocent kind of comfort she was hoping to give fell away at the glimpse of the long, lean, bare body bathed in the moonlight. With her feet just dipping into the cool water, rippling around her ankles, Carol seemed luminescent, glowing in a way that no woman Tara had ever seen before. She lost her breathe somewhere in the water that cascaded down Carol’s naked back, the round of her bottom a perfect reflection in the deepening stream.

Caught up in the tingling excitement that gripped her, Tara hadn’t noticed the way her feet had subconsciously carried her forward until the sound of a snapped twig brought her back to herself. She looked down at the offending stick, only to jump back with a gasp when she raised her head to find Carol staring at her. The blue of her eyes wide and glinting as her head tilted slightly to her side.

“You should be asleep,” she had said, not bothering to cover up any bit of her as she stood in full view of the moon and the stars and all of God’s unholy creatures.

Tara averted her eyes, staring at the tree line engulfed in darkness to their right as she choked on a jumble of words that stuck in her throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to see _all_ of you,” she gestured with a wave of her hand towards her.

“It’s fine,” Carol shrugged, taking the few steps out of the rivulet to meet the dirt, “But what are you following me for? I have my knife, and I’m close enough that someone would have heard me yell if I needed help.”

“I wasn’t trying to protect you,” Tara explained, her voice falling slightly as she tried her best to ignore the way the water droplets ran down her thighs, “I thought you might need help.”

“Why?” she asked, bypassing where her clothes lay still on a small cluster of rocks and coming to stand directly in front of her. The air felt thicker, warmer than the comfortable chill that laid there before.

“Sometimes, you just look so sad,” the whisper fell through the cracks of her lips hanging between them like a secret that wasn’t supposed to get out.

The road after Grady was long and uneven, and they’d all lost their footing somewhere along the way. Carol didn’t think anyone noticed the specks that chipped off her while she did her best to keep them going. Daryl was gone for a long time, something dark and unrelenting hallowing him from the inside. He’d only respond to Carol, but still he gave her just a little more than a grunt here or there.

Tara noticed the way her eyes always glazed over after spending the time it would take to get Daryl to eat or drink or speak or cry or care or whatever it was she needed him to do. It zapped her dry every time, leaving her weighted and gutted but she was still trudging forward. She’d lead them for a while before falling back, winding through the group and checking slyly on each member of their mismatched family.

Carol’s eyes in that moment held that same disheartened look that made Tara feel so desperately that something had to be done. So she kissed her. With soft lips and fingertips just brushing at her jawline, Tara snapped back from the kiss just as quickly as she had started it. For the first time in days, she actually saw Carol smile.

-*-

“Tara!” the yell shook her, and she wondered how long she had been standing alone in the back of the store, dumbfounded by her own reverie as she stared at a pack of batteries. Carol crouched by the storefront window, gesturing for her to get down. Stooping, Tara pulled her revolver out from the back of her jeans and slowly moved closer to where Carol squatted.

She didn’t even have to peak out the window, the dripping growls as familiar as crickets on a warm summer’s eve.

“How many?” she whispered.

“Maybe about a dozen. Just a small pack,” Carol said, checking the chamber on her Colt. A curse escaped her mouth as she sucked her teeth. Their limited ammo would be better served on their trip back to Alexandria, in case they ran into something bigger. Or smarter.

“We can wait them out. Something more interesting may come around and distract them away,” Tara suggested, pointing to the empty candy shelves. Carol nodded and together they pushed two of the heavy metal shelves up against the doors. The walkers leaned against it, pawing and mewling at them from behind the glass.

They slid behind the cashier’s counter, hidden from view in the cramped space. It was possible that if they stayed out of view long enough the walkers would almost forget they were there, walk off and find something else to yearn after.

Tara set her gun on the floor, within easy reach if she needed it. She plucked the candy cane that she had rewrapped in its remaining plastic from her pocket and started to suck on it again. It was even more tasteless than before and she couldn’t help but wonder if she only thought it was minty because that’s how she remembered it being.

“Do you ever still feel sad for them?” she asked suddenly, not waiting for Carol to answer before continuing, “They never get to be satisfied. They never get to stop, they’re just always… _wanting_.”

“We can say the same thing though, can’t we?”

-*-

One kiss wasn’t enough for either of them. Tara wanted nothing more than to taste the reassuring calm of Carol’s breathe on her lips, and in every waking moment she spent timing the seconds until she could again.

It became a semi-routine. Carol or Tara would volunteer for first watch, and when someone took over for them (usually Rosita or Sasha) they would excuse themselves to a secluded spot under the guise of bathing or bathroom use or to just stretch. As they rustled through the group they’d tap the other three times in the shin and no more than two minutes later they’d no longer be so alone.

The first two times they just kissed. It was endearing the nervous kind of energy Carol had in the beginning. She blamed it on walkers, on getting caught, and broke away at every leaf rustle and insect chirp. But Tara recognized it for what it was, the kind of fear that comes along with newness. With the uncertainty of being out of practice, or never practiced in some cases, and Carol never had to say anything for Tara to know no one had kissed her in more years than she could think of.

The third night the group found themselves in a junkyard. They claimed cars and vans and pick-up trucks to spend the night in. Carol curled herself across the front bench of the stripped down body of an El Camino. Daryl spread himself across the back seat, his shallow snores a confirmation that he was more exhausted than he had wanted to let on, despite Carol’s insistence that he take it easy that day. Tara had caught her eye as she walked past after her turn at watch. She tilted her head towards the back of the lot where a half hooded Mustang convertible sat on cinderblocks.

They slipped beneath the blanket of darkness onto the cracked leather seats, the smell of car and anticipation already surrounding them. Their lips came together with quiet gasps between each slow, tender kiss. Carol had pushed her down to the seat, straddling her. Tara had learned quickly that she liked to be dominant, in control and she had no problem acquiescing to whatever direction Carol led her in.

Maybe it was the stars and the moon and the open, hushed air of that particular night that pushed Carol forward, but after a bout of the long, languid kissing they had been accustomed to she pulled Tara’s hand beneath the fabric of her thin sweater. Her fingertips brushed against the soft round of her belly, luxuriously sweeping across the plushness. She brought her lips down to Carol’s neck, alternating between quick nips and soft kisses as she made a trail down to the jag of her collarbone.

Tracing in slow, steady lines Tara brought her hands to Carol’s back, feeling each vertebrae as she trekked up her spine. Carol’s low moans at each new touch beat out a drowsy rhythm that she followed with distinct measure. Reaching the hooks of the war beaten bra, she unhooked it with an easy pinch, and in one fluid motion had Carol chest-bared and gleaming before her.

She didn’t even have a moment to register and appreciate what was in front of her; she needed to forget what thinking was altogether pressed her face to the low dip of Carol’s breasts. She needed to explore with her hands, with her cheek, with her tongue, with her skin.

Tiny kisses found their way to her bellybutton, and up to her throat. The warmth of Tara’s tongue rolled across her nipples, mixed with the harshness of teeth grabbing at the underside of the supple flesh that she kneaded against her beating heart. 

It never was just kissing after that. Hours stretched beneath the hidden moon filled with held back gasps as tongues traced and teeth grazed at slick, salted skin. Fingers slid at achingly fast speeds, tight and curved, until Tara had to hold her mouth to Carol’s just to keep her from crying out.

Carol became just as giving over the weeks they traveled like wandering drifters up the East Coast. She’d be hard-pressed to ever forget the first time Carol tasted her. The way the grey of her hair stuck up from between Tara’s legs and the lavish, unforgiving licks of her tongue. Carol was nothing short of thorough. She had dug her fingers so deep into the wet ground that dirt had wedged beneath her nails for a week.

But that was all before.

-*-

She twirled the candy cane in her mouth, listening to the walkers outside.

Carol had been quiet, sitting beside her and drawing her thumb repeatedly across the chamber of her gun. If it was three weeks ago, before they got to Alexandria she would have been drawing that thumb down to Tara’s center, not wanting to waste a chance alone.

What they had, it was fleeting and she knew that. Just small moments of calm amidst the waves of guilt and mourning and starvation. It couldn’t last, because nothing ever truly did. Getting to Alexandria, to safety, it meant an ending on that kind of desperate love.

Still, Carol had snuck into her house a few times, curling around her in the small bed she had allotted for herself. They lived in separate houses and Tara didn’t pretend not feel a sense of loss from it. Carol never stayed till morning, and Tara always awoke with the ghost of a dream that she couldn’t tell was real or not.

Daryl was doing better, Aaron and his motorcycle gave him some kind of piece of Alexandria to call his own. Tara felt like she was finally getting to know him, even if they had been in each other’s company for almost two months. She found out he was funny without meaning to be, and every now and then he’d make the whole group laugh. Carol laughed especially loud, but Tara knew that was because she never thought she’d hear him joke again.

The incessant knocking had lessened, with just an occasional groan. She had guessed that most of the walkers had wandered in a different direction.

“Is it over?” Tara asked.

“It has to be,” Carol smiled sadly, but not in the way she used to. She leaned in close, planting a small, chaste kiss to the corner of Tara’s mouth. “But I won’t forget it. You did more for me than anyone has in a long while.”

She had meant the walkers, but she knew this was why Carol had agreed to come with her in the first place. With Glenn out of commission due to that bullet he took in the shoulder, she would have had to trek out to the small convenience store alone. It was a quick run, so it didn’t take a lot to convince Deanna to let Carol come along. In fact she thought it would take a lot more to get Carol to agree. When she readily said yes, Tara knew.

It hurt, but it wasn’t the kind of razor-edged knife twist in her gut that she had expected. Maybe because she was expecting it at all, that the blow was kind of softened. She already missed her, but in the way that she missed the heat in the dead of winter, just because she hadn’t felt it in a long time.

Peeking around the counter, Carol grabbed her pack and stood. Holding a hand out for Tara, she pulled her up from the floor.

“C’mon, only three left. We can take them out.”

Tara nodded, smiling at the comforting squeeze Carol gave her hand before letting go. She twisted the candy cane in her mouth one last time, sucking hard before she pulled it from her mouth and discarded it on the floor. The red was almost completely faded, nothing but a sheen white stick remained. It didn’t taste like she remembered, but then again, most things didn’t.


End file.
